Euroskeptics: Fractious factions

Patrick L Young is CEO of niche crowdfunding platform HanzaTrade and an advisor to fund managers throughout the world. Born in Ireland, he is an active investor in the “New Europe” amongst other emerging markets and is an active Co Founder of grassroots startup group "Mission ToRun."
Home Page: http://patricklyoung.net Twitter: @FrontierFinance

Despite the wealth of the English language, I am uncertain what collective noun is best for a gathering of euroskeptics. One possibility: “a Consensus of euroskeptics” looks increasingly unlikely.

Despite the fact that the EU has played fast and loose with
concepts it allegedly espouses such as democracy...and against a
background of vast Mediterranean unemployment, it is remarkable
to reflect just how little anti-European activity is prevalent in
say Spain where the same ‘speak your weight’ machine politics
dominate the landscape. Then again the conventional media in most
EU nations retain a firm hard-wired pro-EU bias, often
incentivized by lavish grants.The BBC, for instance, has long had
its nose in the EU grant trough. Therefore the road to
euroskepticism is a tough one as the media will blithely ignore
or smear those without blind faith in Brussels. Last year the
fledgling German AfD was broadly ignored by pundits who deemed it
incapable of gaining any votes apart from a few fringe
"nutters". Despite being largely disregarded by, er,
‘free and fair’ media, AfD came within a whisker of the
5% threshold to have representatives under Germany’s rather
corporate, party democracy.

AfD is an interesting point to start our journey through the
disparate world of euroskepticism. For their skepticism is not
the same as others’. The rapidly expanding euroskeptic universe
is already riven by factional disputes which resemble the endless
machinations of student Trotskyites battling each other over the
future of the revolution while everybody else just gets on with
life. AfD espouses a very German hue of euroskepticism, believing
that Brussels needs root and branch reform which they hope to
change from within. Thus AfD resembles Britain’s Conservatives
who abandoned the Europhile Christian Democratic leagues (EPP) to
create the somewhat less fawning ECR. Incidentally, Mrs Merkel
was incensed at the idea David Cameron might make an alliance
with AfD if they enter the European Parliament. If she prevails,
will it be fair to say she is running two MEP groups?

UKIP, in many ways the poster child of modern euroskepticism, is
riding high in Britain. Denounced as deranged ‘little Englanders’
in the media, UKIP is edging ahead in current polls which could
mark a breakthrough election for leader Nigel Farage, generating
a significant flow of euroskeptic additions to the European
Parliament. However Mr Farage deems Brussels so corrupt and
incompetent that renegotiation is futile. Thus AfD aren’t willing
to ally with UKIP despite their being a broadly credible
mainstream grouping.

UKIP is at a critical point, but apart from AfD they too have a
narrow window of potential parliamentary allies amongst the
emerging big beasts of euroskepticism. It is difficult to blame
UKIP for being reluctant about new cross Channel partners. For
starters the French have begun drinking up the euroskeptic
message. The National Front could top the poll there. True,
Marine Le Pen has been working to detoxify the brand her father
spent so long running as a more overtly racist enterprise.
However, it is tough to stomach the blind protectionist
nationalism of France’s National Front while it’s former
anti-Semitic fury now seems to focus on Islamic immigrants in
particular. Nevertheless, in the otherwise fragmented world of
euroskepticism Le Pen has found a key ally, the Dutch Freedom
Party with similar aims and extremes. However they may not retain
their recent poll lead because the party is fragmenting as a
result of an anti-Moroccan chant performed by leader Geert
Wilders in what looks like being a significant vote losing
campaign gaffe. At the same time undermining your own party from
within is a new departure even for the somewhat fractious world
of euroskeptic relations. Then again it resembles student
Trotskyism through and through.

Nevertheless otherwise non-harmonized but firmly euroskeptic
parties of multiple shades could make up 30% of the seats
compared to 12% currently. However, the various factions may yet
rush to create post-election alliances in order to qualify for
lucrative grants, and also to join the working committees at the
core of Parliamentary policymaking. Meanwhile, in a clear example
of how the EU promotes democracy in name only when it suits the
cause of more Europe, the blindly fanatical Europhile EPP and
Socialist (S&D) parties are already saying that so long as
the euroskeptic bloc is a minority, the two biggest groups will
maintain their grand coalition to ram policy through regardless
of the opposition - or the growing skepticism of the electorate.

Such staggering contempt for democracy hardly suggests Europe is
on the right track.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.